Friday, November 2, 2012

Putting the African Savanna into Context

In the same way that my sketches of people in coffee shops
tend to look like floating heads, my sketches of zoo animals tend to be
isolated figures. A crane, a giraffe, an orangutan – they all
seem to end up in my sketchbooks without context.

So just as I’ve been trying to give floating heads in coffee shops a place to be, I decided that on my frequent visits to the zoo,
I would try to give animals more context, too. This afternoon I had only an
hour before closing time, so I quickly trotted over to the African Savanna
exhibit and was lucky enough to catch zebras grazing. A voice on the P.A. system
was announcing the zoo’s imminent closure when I spotted a huge, lumbering
hippo. No time for context, but I did manage to sketch her (either Guadalupe or
Water Lily – I’m not sure which) from all four sides.